50 Girls 50

My good friend, Bruce McCorkindale asked me to do the layouts for a comic project he was working on called 50 Girls 50. He would then proceed to pencil and ink the final pages. He knows layouts are my favorite thing to do, comics wise. This book was loaded with spaceships, monsters and girls, so how could I resist?

I did some photo research before designing the monster. I could have just made the whole thing up, but researching nature and riffing off other peoples ideas punches up your work. Such research or ,”scrapping out” illustrations, used to require keeping “morgues”, file cabinets full of meticulously organized photos clipped from books and magazines. I also had a stack of National Geographic Magazines and made frequent trips to the library. But now it’s a snap. Google Image searches and visits to GettyImages.com make you an expert in anything!These are done small, 7.5″ X 5 “

Laying out comics is akin to directing movies. You have to think about the setting, the time of day, direction of light, what the characters look like and who they are, camera angles, and where to crop. All this must serve the story. Each panel must take place at a critical point in time. For instance, if the story requires one character to punch another: Do you show the actual punch? Maybe it’s better to show just a fraction of a second afterwards, with the punched character reeling and his tooth sailing through the air. At any rate it’s a challenging mental excercise. Plus, while doing so you have to keep in mind anatomy, perspective, how clothes wrinkle etc !! It’s tough, but it’s FUN!Working out the perspective on the ship. Hmmm I think Bruce drew this one. Below are some detailed pencils, I did, of some of the key figures.